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What's wrong with Lou Dobbs? Plenty...
November 9, 2007
1. Stuck at the gym with Lou: I got caught on a treadmill last night with CNN blaring at me, and I was subjected to Lou Dobbs, the “populist journalist” who had made a nice career and a healthy sum of money railing against the divisions in America. He’s got another new book out, so it’s little wonder that he’s ratcheted up the rhetoric with little in the way of solutions. His comments are little more than ideological pornography. He reminds me of the way a character in the movie, “The American President” was described: Someone who loves America but can’t stand Americans.
2. So what’s wrong with Lou? Part 1: Lou, there’s no such thing as ‘advocacy journalism.’ There’s journalism. There’s advocacy. If you don’t know the difference, fine. Don’t make up terms, and for all of our sakes, don’t put the two together. Real journalists and real advocates will be offended.
3. What’s wrong with Lou? Part 2: Here’s a quote from the Nov. 7 transcript of his broadcast about the problems with imported Chinese toys tainted with a substances that, if ingested, has the same properties as the so-called ‘date-rape’ drug: “Talking about unscrupulous business people in this case, manufacturers bringing these products into this country, but what about the unprincipled business practices of outsourcing American jobs, off shoring production of these products to bring into this country. This is outsourcing…The fact is we need to get a control of this economy and in control of what we are doing to protect the American consumer.”
Is Lou suggesting that it would have been better if these same products were made in the U.S.? The problem with manufacturing today is that quality, safety and productivity all vary wildly depending on where you are in the world. The manufacturers who chased after lower wages have been losing in those areas. What is emerging is a global economy that recognizes the importance of quality and safety, and it will push out those products and manufacturers who fail to meet those standards. It is why Korean and Japanese automakers are investing billions in American plants. It is not a simple concept, but Lou has a simple view of the world: we should make everything for everyone because we always have.
4. What’s wrong with Lou? Part 3: One more quote from the Nov. 7 broadcast on an estimate that job outsourcing reaching 40%: “If we take that as a top number, that's absolutely devastating. Carl Mack said it as well as one possibly can. This isn't the America that any of us imagined. It is the America, however, I feared when I wrote a book four years ago called "Exporting America." The idea that this country -- I just want the free traders, these faith-based Mr. Market Morons, to come to terms with one reality. And that is if they want to conduct themselves rationally in economic terms, then United States government and the American citizens should conduct themselves rationally and that is punish them for unconscionable business practices like outsourcing of middle class jobs and off shoring production for products for re-entry into the world's largest, greatest consumer market.” If that truly was happening in America, that would be one thing. But unemployment is down, the economy is evolving, as it always has. If Lou Dobbs were alive in the 1880s, he would have complained that the middle class lifestyle of the farmer was being destroyed as jobs were outsourced to the inner cities. Lou ought to get into a few manufacturing plants and see what’s REALLY happening today. He ought to observe it from the level of a journalist. Maybe then he’d know what he was advocating, which is the destruction of the American economic revolution before it ever gets started. But don't forget to plug the book, Lou...
5. We should have seen Lou Dobbs coming: We got a preview in 1976, in one of the greatest movies in American history. It certainly accurately predicted what was coming next. Here’s a clip from that movie. Tell me this doesn’t remind you of Lou, or of what CNN and Fox have become, for that matter…
Posted by Bob Vavra on November 9, 2007 | Comments (6)
